What Ever Happened To Integrity?

(photo: defense.pk)

In Canada, there is a furor unleashing over the recent Auditor General’s report on the purchase of F-35 fighter jets. The Conservative government of Stephen Harper has been exposed for misrepresenting the true costs of the purchase while bureaucrats and military leaders have been exposed for outright misrepresentation and manipulation of ,and during, the procurement process.

This is nothing new. The previous Liberal government under Jean Chretien lied to get elected and worked overtime to hide the true facts of Adscam which saw millions stolen from taxpayers to line the pockets of Liberal bag men and supporters. People went to prison for that one.

It isn’t any different in the United States. The costs of President Obama’s healthcare plan have been exposed as seriously misrepresented while the previous Republican government started a war in Iraq based on a lie about weapons of mass destruction.

President Obama
(photo topnews.in)

There are countless more examples and it is clear that a lack of integrity is not a monopoly of the right or the left. It has become a part of how politicians and government now operate. But if it is acceptable to them as the normal course of business, it is not acceptable to most of us.

Even the media lies to us now. That isn’t a paranoid conspiracy theory, just a simple fact. There has been an egregious and deliberate misrepresentation of some facts in the Trayvon Martin shooting as the mainstream media manipulated and altered tapes and evidence to fit a narrative rather than letting the facts and the evidence establish their own narrative as they became known.

That isn’t acceptable to us anymore either.

Now more than ever, there is an attitude in our societies that the ends justify the means and organizations, groups, causes, unions are all part of the great obfuscation.  But it remains government that is the worst offender primarily because they are the sworn protectors of our constitutions and our rights.

They have forgotten that as they manipulate the truth in the contradictory belief that it is possible to arrive at a just place through unethical and dishonest behaviour.

The Bush administration justified its lie about weapons of mass destruction because it believed that there was an urgent need to remove Sadam Hussein in the war against terrorism. 

President Obama and his supporters did not reveal the truth about the true cost of healthcare in order to get it passed because they believed that the value of healthcare justified the misrepresentation.

In Canada, the Liberals lied to hide criminal wrong doing that had been undertaken in what they considered to be necessary to fight Quebec separatism and who knows what the current Conservative government was thinking when they lied about the cost of the F-35.

Prime Minister Harper
(photo Toronto Star)

Of all of the lies, that is the one that strikes me as the most absurd and, quite frankly, just down right stupid.

The procurement process for the F-35 was initiated by the former Liberal government in 1997. The Conservatives, who inherited the file in 2006 when they took office, could have easily walked away from this with all of the blame attached to their political opponents. Instead, they defended the purchase, took ownership of the file and are now in crash and burn mode as a result.

I can only surmise that lying and hiding the truth have become so second nature to politicians and governments that the Conservatives lied automatically and without thinking.

Whatever the reason, that lie and thousands of others like them do more than misrepresent the true facts of the issue at hand; they have the cumulative effect of undermining trust in government and ultimately in each other. We lose our ability to trust and without trust, our society is gravely weakened.

The lack of accountability leaves the electorate feeling powerless. The lies and deliberate misrepresentations demean the ability of the electorate to believe in the political process and that is evidenced by the declining number of voters at every election.

Government and politicians may lie to us, mislead us and hide the truth from us but in the end, we are the ones who are most responsible.

Election after election, we choose sides and condemn one side while embracing the other as honest and decent. We are fools and those that mislead us count on our simple-minded foolishness. Instead of bickering among ourselves about which is the better candidate, we should be uniting together regardless of our political leanings to demand a higher standard from all politicians and their parties.

We should demand accountability and refuse to support any political party that isn’t prepared to legislate or support tough integrity standards. The media should be subject to the same basic standards of integrity as everyone else and when they are caught in deliberate misrepresentation, there should be real and serious consequences which for television and radio networks should include the possibility of losing their broadcast license.

I don’t care what democratic country you live in, your country belongs to you. Government is there to serve not to rule. It is there to manage your common resources to the benefit of all, not just a privileged few or those who have enough influence to earn special entitlements. Media feed off the freedom your democracy affords and they should be fully accountable to treat that with the utmost respect.

Instead of arguing among ourselves over which candidate is a fascist or a crook or just plain stupid, we need to stand together and force our politicians to be open, to be transparent and above all else to meet the highest possible standard of integrity.

In Canada, the new omnibus crime bill will see more serious crimes treated with more serious punishment. It may well be time for an omnibus political crime bill that sees dishonest politicians go to prison for misrepresentation, fraud and mismanagement.

Conrad Black went to prison over millions of mismanaged shareholder investments. Governments have squandered billions, even trillions and lied about it. I fail to see how they are any better than people like Mr. Black or others like him.

One thing, however, remains clear. If we ever stop squabbling among ourselves long enough to force government to impose stricter accountability on politicians up to and including possible criminal prosecution……we’re going to need more prisons.

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